by Dee Davis
"We should be able to make it to the door if we crawl," Melissa whispered. "There should be a blind spot there." She pointed to the floor about two feet ahead.
Nigel nodded his agreement, and then motioned for her to go first. She started crawling forward, using knees and elbows but stopped when another shot ricocheted off the baseboard.
"Move," Nigel hissed, following behind her in a low crouch, his gun trained on the window. Not that he had a prayer in hell of hitting anything. Whoever was shooting at them had the advantage of distance—and a high-powered scope on their rifle.
Melissa reached the door and was starting to rise up to open it.
"Wait," Nigel said. "Let me distract him."
She nodded, and he grabbed one of Alexi's shoes. "When I throw it, go." He counted silently to three and then threw the shoe at the window. Melissa yanked the door open and ran through it just as the leather of the shoe splintered from the force of their assailant's slug.
Nigel rolled past the window and through the open door in practically one motion, the two of them retreating to a windowless corner of the hallway. Melissa was breathing heavily but otherwise unharmed.
"That went well," she said, shooting him a crooked smile.
"Yes, but we've still got to get out of the building. If there's a back door, we're home free. Otherwise we'll be like sitting ducks when we emerge onto the street."
"It's a brownstone. There should be a garden of some kind."
"Great, then all we have to do is figure out how to access it. And we've got to do it fast, before whoever it is out there has time to work out our strategy and reposition himself."
Melissa nodded, already heading down the stairs, .38 still in her hand. Nigel followed, taking in both the landing above them and the landing below. The building was quiet, but he couldn't rule out the possibility that there was more than one shooter.
They reached the second-floor landing without incident. But as they turned the corner, the window in front of them shattered. Melissa hit the floor and Nigel moved back, out of range.
"He's still in the same location," Nigel said, picturing Kirov's apartment. "This window faces the same direction as the one upstairs."
Melissa nodded and crawled under the window to safety on the other side of the landing. "You're next." She angled herself so that she could shoot out the window if necessary.
He crawled past the window and leapt to his feet again, signaling Melissa to follow him down the stairs. It was darker here, the overhead light burned out, but he could discern the hallway below. The front door would be behind them. He tried to remember how much glass there was.
"Not much," Melissa whispered, reading his thoughts. "Just one window, about a foot square."
"All right, come off the stairs in a crouch and head toward the back of the hall. Hopefully you're right and there's a door to the garden."
Melissa hit the last stair, bending low as she ran down the hallway away from the front door. Nigel followed, moving backward, bis eyes trained on the front-door window.
Suddenly the glass shattered, the window imploding.
"Get down," he yelled behind him as he automatically dropped to the floor.
The slug slammed into the left-hand wall.
Nigel fired twice at the door and then scrambled backward. A small French door marked the end of the hallway, and Melissa already had it open. "Go," he yelled. "I'm right behind you." Another shot rang out, this one whizzing past his ear. The shooter was on the move. Closer now. Maybe even as close as the front door.
He rose to a crouch and headed for the back door, another bullet slamming into the wall, this time about two inches from his head. It was tempting to stop and return fire, but he knew that would mean certain death. Instead he ran forward, stopping only long enough to slam the door closed behind him.
The garden was little more than a courtyard, and at least at first glance there was no other way in or out. Seconds ticked away as they looked for egress.
"There." Melissa pointed, already starting to run.
Nigel didn't see anything, but he followed her anyway, praying that she was seeing something he wasn't. She rounded two trash cans and disappeared from view. Nigel followed suit, relieved to see a slender alley leading out onto the street adjacent to the building. Behind him, he heard the door slam open, and the clatter of feet.
They were almost out of time.
The gate at the end of the alley was locked, but Melissa didn't hesitate as she boosted herself up and over. Nigel followed suit, as another bullet ricocheted off the wrought-iron grating to the left of his hand.
He hit the cement hard but rolled immediately to his feet, turning to fire once through the fence. Melissa was already sprinting down the block away from the building. From the opposite direction he could hear the wail of a siren. God willing, someone had called the cops.
Either way, they were out of here.
Unless their pursuer was deaf, he'd hear the siren, too. Be-tween that and the fact that Nigel and Melissa were now sprinting up a very public street, he'd be forced to give up— at least for now.
Luck, it seemed, was still on their side. The question was for how long.
KHAMIS STOOD BACK in the shadow of the alley watching the woman and her friend run away. It would have been so easy to let the Russian pig take them. To end it now. But that would have defeated his plan.
Much better to stop the Russian.
He looked dispassionately down at the body at his feet. It was perhaps more of a chance than he should have taken. Malik certainly would not approve. But Malik wasn't here. And what he didn't know...
Khamis waited until the sirens faded into the distance, then pulled out his knife and reached down for an arm. It would be easier to dispose of the man in pieces. He smiled as he began to carve, thinking about the phrase they always used in American television. He dropped the arm into a trash bag he'd liberated from the garbage, and whispered to the corpse, "And now, my friend, you sleep with the fishes."
CHAPTER TWENTY
"WHAT IN HELL were you thinking?" Cullen's face had turned a mottled shade of red, and Melissa felt certain he was going to explode. His mood was matched by the rest of the team, all of whom were assembled in Cullen's study. "Exactly how the hell was I supposed to explain it if something had happened to you? You're not even supposed to be here."
"But nothing happened." Melissa shrugged with a nonchalance she didn't really feel. Actually, the whole thing had been a bit exhilarating. Watching Nigel at work. Working with him to keep themselves alive. It was the same adrenaline rush she had when she was shooting a war zone. Every move vital, every second precious.
"That's not the point." Cullen clenched a fist, lifted it, and then as if on second thought, let it drop.
"Maybe not," Nigel said, from his armchair by the fire, "but it is a fact that if Melissa hadn't been there, I'd probably be dead. We took turns drawing fire. That's the only way we got out of the building at all." A bandage shone white against his temple, the result of a bullet graze, and she rubbed the square of gauze on her own arm, thinking that they were a matched pair. For all the good that did them.
"Any idea who was doing the shooting?" This from Pay-ton, who had been frowning at her from the fireplace ever since they'd convened the meeting. So much for swinging him over to her side.
"None at all," Nigel said. "We never got a look at him. It all happened too fast. But from the looks of it, I'd say he was local talent."
"What makes you say that?" Gabe asked.
"Well, he obviously knew his business. Positioning and trajectories, that sort of thing. But if he were in our game, he wouldn't have missed. And he did. Several times."
"And here I thought we were just good at evasion," Melissa said.
"Well, there is that." Nigel's smile was tempered, but she'd take what she could get. The flight home had been a quiet one, and she knew that despite his attempts to side with her now, he wasn't at all happy with the fact that
she'd been in danger.
She ought to feel contrite, but in truth, she didn't. After all her sister had always insisted that obstinate was Melissa's middle name.
"The truth is," Nigel continued, "that our skill set outweighed our assailant's. Not that I'm making light of the situation in any way. It was close, but I've seen worse."
"So we've got a tenuous connection between Hakan Celik and Alexi Kirov. But we can't substantiate it because Alexi is dead. Presumably by the same hand as Celik." Harrison stood up to pace in front of the window.
"And it looks like whoever offed Kirov also has it in for Nigel and Melissa," Sam added. She was standing close to Payton, the two of them looking very much as if they belonged together.
"My bet is that it was Melissa being targeted," Nigel said. "I would have just been collateral damage."
"But how the hell could they have known I'd show up at Alexi's?" Melissa asked, not liking the idea that she'd specifically been targeted.
"Two possibilities that I can see." Madison as usual cut right to the chase. "The first is that it was just coincidence. The killer was still there when you arrived, and seeing opportunity, took it."
"And the second?" Nigel asked.
"Someone is hunting her. If Alexi knew that she survived the poisoning—and I think that's a reasonable assumption since there was no body—then it's conceivable that he hired someone to finish the job."
"That would explain the gunman near the Regency." Nigel's forehead crinkled in thought. "But how could he have known Melissa would be at Alexi's?"
"Well, it would make sense that she'd try to get to the bottom of what happened. Clear her name. And since Alexi appears to have been at the center of the maelstrom, it isn't too big a leap to assume she'd eventually come to the source. Especially if you consider the newspaper at Celik's."
"A ploy to lead her to slaughter," Payton mused.
"It's possible." Madison shrugged. "I'm just trying to build a theory off of the facts."
"But why the delay? The sniper could easily have picked both Nigel and Melissa off when they entered the building." Cullen's question wasn't directed at anyone in particular, but Madison answered.
"Again there are two possibilities. You said there was a woman who let you in, right?" Madison turned to look at Melissa.
"Right. You think the shooter didn't want to involve a bystander?"
Madison shrugged. "It's certainly a possibility."
"But he didn't use a silencer, which is tantamount to sending an engraved invitation," Nigel said. "It seems like he wasn't all that worried about keeping his work a secret."
"Then, for some reason he needed you to find Alexi's body," Madison said, propping her chin on her hand.
"Maybe it was an attempt to frame Melissa again." Pay-ton leaned against the mantel crossing his arms.
"Well, whatever it was, I don't see how it could have involved Khamis al-Rashid. Any progress on locating him?" Cullen asked.
"Nothing so far." Harrison sounded as frustrated as Melissa felt. "The man isn't exactly high profile. Russian intel put him in Kazakhstan as recently as last week. Which could conceivably have put him into position to steal the R-VX, but that's just conjecture on my part."
"Combined with the photographs in Izmit, I'd say it's pretty sound logic," Sam said. "Northwestern Kazakhstan is an easy access point to where the R-VX was stored, and it's also fairly easy to find passage from Kazakhstan through to the Black Sea. All of which fits the pattern."
"But even if that's true, we're still left with the fact that both al-Rashid and the R-VX have basically disappeared from the radar." Gabe lipped back his head, rubbing his temples.
"We'll keep looking," Harrison said. "We're fairly certain now that Alexi Kirov was the UN contact. Hopefully, we'll be able to find something in the shipments he controlled that links to one or the other."
"And I'm still waiting for background information on al-Rashid," Madison said. "History can go a long way toward explaining motivation, and once we have that, it'll be much easier to identify a target."
"So we're making progress," Cullen interjected hopefully.
"Not fast enough for my books," Payton said with his usual pessimism.
"Well, maybe I have something mat can help." Tracy Brax-ton stood in the door of the study. With Cullen's help, she'd set up a partial lab here at the safe house, complete with state-of-the-art equipment and several of her staff. The rest of the work was still being done in the city, but Tracy's presence made dissemination of information move much more quickly. "A couple of things, actually." She held out a file, and Gabe took it "I told you I'd run a check on the MO for Celik's murder."
"And you found something," Cullen prompted, his impatience obvious.
"I did. There were four murders in the last three years that involved the same kind of knife. Three of them were suspected mob hits. A guy named Johnny Jacko. He was never convicted, but there was enough to warrant an arrest in two of the cases. They never went to trial."
"Any idea what the guy's real name is?" Nigel asked.
"Yeah," she said, nodding at the file. "His name is Ivan Jac-ovitz. Russian mafia. Of course I can't prove he's behind Celik's murder. Only that an eight-inch serrated hunting knife seems to be his preferred methodology."
"It's a start." Payton reached over to take the file from Gabe. "If he's involved, believe me, we'll find out."
"Harrison, can you find the guy for us?" Gabe asked. "Or at least give us an address?"
"Sure." Harrison opened his laptop and started typing. "Should be fairly easy."
"You said you had two things," Cullen said to Tracy.
"Oh, right." She smiled, the gesture transforming. "I used indentations in the subsequent page to produce what had been written on the missing page from Alexi Kirov's planner." She dug into another file, producing a printout. "As you know, the missing day was the same as the one that Melissa was poisoned and Celik was murdered. There are a couple of routine notations. Meetings at the UN. I checked them out and they're legit. But here, in the margin toward the bottom—" she pointed to the reconstructed page "—there were scribbled letters—/ and V. Based on the punctuation present, I'd have to say they're initials. Unfortunately that's all I've got."
Madison reached for the sheet of paper, studying it for a minute.
"What are you thinking?" Gabe asked.
"Well, maybe I'm being influenced by our previous discussion about the Russian mob, but one of the major famihes is run by a man named Igor Vetalav. We tried to nail him tor a siring of homicides about four years ago."
"Hey, I remember that," Harrison said, looking up from his computer. "It was about diamonds, right? A bunch of jewelers killed."
"Russian Jews, to be exact." Madison nodded. "But unfortunately we couldn't prove anything."
"How about Jacovitz? He have ties to Vetalav?" Nigel leaned forward, his eyes narrowed in thought.
"According to this—" Harrison tapped his screen "—he works for the guy. The FBI hasn't been able to substantiate it, but there is strong circumstantial evidence linking him to Vetalav."
"Nice work." Tracy sounded impressed. "Hey, I can do better than that." Harrison's smile was lopsided and just a bit on the wicked side. "According to NYPD files the man likes to hang out in a Russian restaurant in Brighton Beach."
"So what do you say we pay this guy a visit?" Nigel was already halfway out the door.
"You don't need to go anywhere," Melissa said, following him out into the hallway away from the others, aware that she had no right whatsoever to tell him what to do but determinedly ignoring the fact. "In case you've forgotten, you were almost killed today. I'm sure Payton and Gabe can handle this one without you."
"You want me to just sit here and wait?" Nigel stopped, turning to face her.
"Welcome to my world." Melissa tried but couldn't keep the note of bitterness from her voice.
"Sorry, but there's no way I'm passing this one up. It's personal." His eyes met
hers, and she shivered at the icy rage she saw there.
"Then please promise me you'll be careful." The words came out before she had time to think about how they sounded.
The ice vanished, replaced by smoldering heat, his breath warm against her cheek as he brushed it with his lips. "Nice to know you care."
"I WANT TO KNOW where you are." Alicia's voice sounded tinny on the satellite phone, even though she technically was only just down the Hudson.
"I'm staying with a friend." There was truth in that—a little at least.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Alicia's displeasure had no trouble at all bouncing off the stratosphere. "I know you, Melissa. And despite the fact that you insist on keeping it in the dark, I am well aware that your job involves more than taking pictures in crisis situations. So don't even try to deny it."
"Fine, if it makes you happy I won't deny anything." There was a modicum of truth in there somewhere surely.
"All right, then tell me what the hell is going on?"
"I can't." Suddenly Melissa hated her life. Hated the deception, the danger. Hell, all of it. Well, maybe not everything. "I'm chasing a story. And if I tell you about it, I'll jinx things. All right? I just called to let you know I was okay."
"Are you with that man?"
She was tempted to pretend she had no idea who Alicia was talking about, but that was probably pushing things too far. "Yes, I am. And his name is Nigel."
"Is he a photographer, too?" Alicia still sounded suspicious.
"No. Related field. I told you before, he's a blast from the past."
"The man in Italy." Alicia sounded so certain, Melissa wondered if her life was that transparent.
"How did you know that?"
"Well, first off, there haven't been that many men. At least not that affected you so deeply. And second, I saw you with him the other night, remember."
"Save the good wishes, we're just working together."
"There's nothing else going on." Again with the lies, but she wasn't about to tell her sister she'd slept with Nigel. Not be-cause she regretted it, but because it would only incite false hope in Alicia, who was perpetually praying for Melissa to find her own happily ever after, and certain that only a man could possibly provide it.
